


Perhaps There Was a Miscommunication

by maddiebug



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Crack, Funny, Hawkmoth identity reveal, Mild Swearing, Miscommunication, Silly, chaotic - Freeform, literally just adrien being frustrated and Nathalie getting confused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25278058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maddiebug/pseuds/maddiebug
Summary: Hawkmoth is the worst, Adrien is sarcastic, and Nathalie misinterprets an entire conversation
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 11
Kudos: 177





	Perhaps There Was a Miscommunication

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Mishaps and Misunderstandings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24951694) by [quicksilversquared](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksilversquared/pseuds/quicksilversquared). 



> Go read Mishaps and Misunderstandings by Quicksilversquared its the inspiration for this. I basically took their plot and ran with it.
> 
> My first couple paragraphs and dialogue are pretty similar to theirs, credits to quicksilversquared, but I wanted to make it more chaotic.

Hawkmoth was the worst.

Besides the fact that he was a magical terrorist bent on defeating Ladybug and Chat Noir to use their miraculous for unknown nefarious purposes, he had the worst schedule known to man.

He had been ramping up the frequency of akumas and it was getting exhausting. Five nights a week, multiple times during the day...

It was as if Hawkmoth never slept, and at the rate he was going, the heroes never did either. Ladybug and Chat Noir were both slowing down, suffering from sleepless nights and interrupted days.

The Akuma weren't particularly difficult to fight (nearly half of them were Mr. Pigeon), but with so many akuma and so little break time, it was only a matter of time before one of them snapped.

Seriously, they were overworked and underpaid.

They didn't even get paid.

It was probably technically illegal, between overtime and - and if Adrien wasn't so exhausted all the time, he would probably try to sue Hawkmoth for some violation of child labor laws. 

But somehow, fighting magical supervillian wasn't nearly as bad as his real job, (The one he did get paid for), modelling. The modelling itself wasn't terrible, he just had to sit there and look pretty. What was terrible was the timing. His father had decided that, since Adrien had school during the day, the best time for photo shoots was before school.

At 6 am, or as Marinette called it, "too early to sleep o'clock, why are you even texting me Adrien I just fell asleep," Adrien found himself getting covered in makeup, hair product, and uncomfortable clothes. He had to stand there and look pretty, when he felt like he was going to keel over from exhaustion.

And then he got yelled at for looking tired. As if he had a choice.

Adrien had to drag himself out of bed every morning, only minutes after he fell asleep. Between early morning photo shoots, and late night Akuma, it was a miracle (and coffee-induced nightmare) that he wasn't falling asleep in class. He didn't even have time after school for naps, because he had fencing or Chinese or basketball. 

He had no time to spend with friends, and no time to sleep. It was overwhelming.

Adrien changed out of his pajamas and combed his hair before heading downstairs for his mandatory breakfast of loneliness. 

As he ate his sad, flavorless, oatmeal (any oatmeal that's not the dinosaur egg type is sad), and eggs, Nathalie read off his schedule for the week. It may not have been the tastiest breakfast, but with the banana he was given on the side, it was a balanced meal. Adrien may have had horrible sleeping habits, but he ate the recommended amount of food every day. He was not the type to skip breakfast.

Or, Nathalie was not the type to let him skip breakfast. (Which was hypocritical considering that she ran on a mediocre breakfast of iced coffee and granola bars every day.)

Adrien had to eat breakfast and dinner in the dining hall, (unless he specifically scheduled eating dinner with a friend), which was dumb because he always ate it alone. His father was always "too busy," or "not hungry," or "Adrien you need to leave my office now, I'm having a crisis." None of those would've been acceptable excuses had Adrien tried to skip a meal. 

Honestly, he wasn't sure if his father actually ate food anymore. Sure, he had seen his father munch on fruit every once in a while, but he never ate anything of substance. (Once, Adrien saw his father eat a flower, but he had to sign several NDAs about it, and it will never be mentioned again). His father drank a lot of sugary drinks, but that was about it.

So, of course, Adrien was expected to eat 3 full meals, and snacks. By himself. 

Ever since his mother disappeared and his father stopped paying attention, Adrien's mornings were Sugar Free™ Oatmeal and a briefing from Nathalie.

This one was no different. 

He tried to pay attention, really, but it was impossible when all of the words coming out of Nathalie's mouth sounded like Simlish. The syllables blended together, and it sounded like nonsense. He felt like he needed Google Translate to understand. (Or Marinette. Marinette was an expert at translating French to Sleep Deprived French. He had switched seats to be next to her, because their brains were functioning on the same level). Adrien was so tired that words didn't sound real, that Nathalie, who spoke in a professional, clear tone, sounded like gibberish.

He giggled a little.

He rubbed his eyes to wake himself up, but when he blinked, Nathalie's stripe of red hair started changing colors, like a disco ball. It was mesmerizing.

Then, his oatmeal became sentient and started dancing. It was a little hard to tell, because it was a blob of oatmeal without arms, but he was pretty sure that it was dancing the "Macarena." (Marinette would've been able to tell for sure). 

He stared at it until Nathalie snapped her fingers in front of his face, jolting him back to reality.

_Maybe he was more tired than he thought._

Adrien nodded his head, knowing that if he forgot anything (and he was absorbing _zero_ information right now), he would get a helpful reminder from the calendar on his phone. 

He thought he was doing a good job of faking being awake, until one minute he was blinking, and the next, Nathalie was pulling his head out of the bowl of flavorless mush. 

"Adrien, are you okay?" Nathalie seemed concerned, which was out of character. "You really can't be falling asleep like this..."

"I'm fine." He mumbled. 

"You fell asleep in oatmeal." 

"It's good for the skin." Adrien had heard that once on the internet and it seemed like as good of an excuse as any. (He had been suffering from more acne than usual, which could be attributed to a variety if factors, including stress, hygiene and hormones.)Maybe, if he pretended that he covered his face in oatmeal on purpose, his father wouldn't be disappointed in him. 

She raised an eyebrow. "Is it?"

"Yeah. I would know. I'm a model."

"I'll talk to your father, I think we should rearrange your schedule. No more early mornings-"

 _That_ certainly caught Adrien's attention. Early mornings were the bane of his existence. If he had known that it would be this easy to get rid of them, he would've face-planted in oatmeal weeks ago. Or cereal. The idea of cereal with milk sounded soothing on his skin. Creamy and fresh. 

As he thought about cereal and milk, and the consequences it would have on his pores, one of the little gnomes (that he had been seeing whenever he got less than two hours of sleep), climbed up on to the table and stole his eggs. _Oh Well._ Adrien wasn't going to eat them anyways. 

"-of course," Nathalie droned on, "we would have to pull you out of school for modeling instead."

He felt his stomach drop. The sheer dread he felt when Nathalie mentioned missing class was immeasurable, similar to how one feels when they want to eat ice cream, only to realize that the only flavor left is butter pecan, and after a couple bites, they remember they are allergic to pecans, and soon their face is swelling up and they can't breathe and nothing is going their way.

That's how Adrien felt.

Overwhelmed, like if he took one wrong move it would all fall apart. He was just barely keeping it together as it was, and he couldn't miss any school.

"You can't do that." Adrien shook his head. "I don't want to fall behind."

"You're a good student. I'm sure-"

"You don't understand. We're already super behind this year because of Akuma attacks. Every class is taking it like three units at a time. I'm barely able to keep up as it is." Adrien tried to explain. "I really don't want to have to do summer school."

"Well, I supposed I could try to lighten up your schedule a bit..." she offered.

But there was no stopping Adrien. He was already on a roll. "Between all my homework and extracurricular activities, I barely even have time to sleep. Its cruel that you think its okay to take away my sleep by making me do early morning photo shoots. How am I supposed to live like this?"

Nathalie rolled her eyes. "There's no need for such theatrics. I'm just trying to explain that we need you to be awake. We can cover up bags under your eyes with makeup, but we can't glue your eyes open for you."

"Theatrics?" Adrien crossed his arms. "I'm not being dramatic. I'm saying the truth. I'm not getting enough sleep. You can't expect me to be awake and happy during these early photoshoots when I can hardly sleep a wink due to Hawkmoth-"

"Hawkmoth has never targeted you. It shouldn't be affecting your sleep."

"He hasn't targeted me specifically, but it's pretty damn-near impossible to sleep at 2am when there's a magical monster destroying half of Paris!" Adrien spat out. 

Nathalie paused. "Well, I could get you coffee, if that'll help keep you awake? 

"If you haven't noticed, I've been drinking coffee every morning." He sighed. "Nathalie, I'm going on strike."

"You can't go on strike-"

"I can."

"Stop being childish Adrien. You are better than this."

"Tell father that I will resume early morning photo shoots when he stops the night time Akuma attacks."

Nathalie spluttered for a moment. "I-"

"I know there are other models that will be on the set today. They don't actually need me, I'm replaceable." Adrien stood up and pushed in his chair. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try to get 45 minutes of sleep before school starts."

Nathalie could only stare as he walked away, doing nothing to stop him.

...

As soon as Adrien got to his room, he collapsed onto his bed. "Plagg, I think I messed up."

The cheese-addicted god was snoring next to him.

"I mean, it felt good to say all of that, but I'm sure it won't Fix anything. Just wait. Any minute now, Nathalie and the Gorilla are going to drag me to a photo shoot."

Adrien stared at the door for a few minutes, but nothing happened.

"Maybe, Nathalie had some empathy and is giving me today off. I'm sure there will be some sort of talk about emotions later."

He started talking in a robotic accent, mimicking his father's assistant, " _Adrien, you are an Agreste and you must be perfect."_

He groaned to himself. "I'm not perfect. I never have been. I was just really good at faking it when I had enough sleep to function."

Plagg mumbled something about cheese.

"No. You're right. I shouldn't apologize for the truth. I am going to nap. Right now."

Adrien spent the next 20 minutes debating with himself about whether he should fall asleep or beg forgiveness from Nathalie in order to keep his little breakdown a secret from his father.

Eventually, Adrien dozed off, but this time his face was in a pillow, not oatmeal, which was significantly better. It was softer, and more breathable, without leaving the sticky residue on his face.

The only downside was that the oatmeal had been warm, where his pillow was cool.

Nathalie let him sleep through the entirety of what would've been the photo shoot. And first period. And second.

By the time Adrien actually woke up, it was lunch time, and he had multiple texts from Nino and Marinette asking if he was okay. 

Marinette offered to bring over notes, his homework, and soup, while Nino just sent some memes about being sick. As soon as he was fully awake, Adrien replied, explaining that he hadn't been sleeping well and needed to catch up. He thanked Marinette, saying that he didn't need soup but would definitely appreciate the homework and notes when he returned after lunch.

He also noticed that all events on his calendar for the day had been cancelled.

Really, it was out of character for Nathalie to allow Adrien to stay in and sleep, but it wasn't the weirdest thing to happen to Adrien.

Maybe she had a change of heart. Perhaps his passionate outburst had really spoken to her. Adrien had been like 80% convinced that she was a sociopath, devoid of emotion, but maybe not. 

Or he was going to be homeschooled again.

He really hoped it wasn't the latter.

Eventually, Adrien left his room, and finding no one else in the house, scrambled together an adequate lunch and walked himself to school, after sending a text to Nathalie, to let her know that he was awake. 

She didn't respond. 

That was really out of character, but Adrien didn't want to dwell on it. Maybe she was having some sort of emotional crisis. Or not. It probably wasn't a big deal. 

He had no idea of what was happening in his father's office.

The sheer chaos- the panic- it was immeasurable.

If Plagg had stumbled upon it, he would've brought popcorn, because that was one spicy conversation, but alas, he was sleeping with Adrien, dreaming of cheese, and then was dragged to school.

...

After Adrien had declared his strike and gone back to sleep, Nathalie stood in the dining room for a few minutes, frozen. 

The conversation kept replaying in her mind. 

_"Tell father that I will resume early morning photo shoots when he stops the night time Akuma attacks."_

There really wasn't any other way to interpret that, was there?

Somehow, against all odds, Adrien knew. He knew that his father was Hawkmoth.

They had really tried to keep the secret, Nathalie didn't know how Adrien found out. He was supposed to be busy all the time, and she was sure that his father's fake "business trips" were a perfect decoy, able to throw anyone off their trail.

Anyone, except Adrien.

At least he wasn't trying to stop it. 

He probably agreed with his father's motives, even though he was annoyed with the schedule. Otherwise, he would've reported them to Ladybug already. 

Of course he missed his mom, it was only natural. Nathalie felt a twinge of sympathy for the boy. It couldn't be easy having all the responsibilities that he did. His father expected him to do so much. And he had to bear the weight of his father's identity... it was miraculous that he didn't snap earlier.

Before Nathalie did anything else, she called the school and told them that Adrien wasn't feeling well. She explained that he had been kept up by the Akuma and would come to school late.

She was able to keep her composure, and had a level, professional gone while speaking with the school Secretary. 

That conversation went well.

Then, Nathalie swore to herself. A lot of colorful language was shouted inside the dining room. She couldn't believe that Adrien knew.

She had always thought that Adrien was rather unobservant, but apparently he knew more than he pretended to. 

She had to tell Gabriel Agreste, but she didn't know how. He was going to be upset. And, there was a chance that she would get fired.

(A very small chance, considering that if he had the audacity to forte her, she would reveal his identity to the superheroes as revenge)

He had worked very hard to keep his identity secret, and he wouldn't be happy that Adrien knew. Of course, the plan was always to eventually tell the boy what happened with his mother, and what his father was trying to accomplish, but it wasn't a conversation they were ready for. 

Yet. 

She walked to Gabriel's office slowly, weighing her options. She could break the news gently, or she could run in, full panic mode.

Internally, Nathalie felt like Full Panic Mode™, but she decided that the best choice of action was to stay calm.

She knocked on his office, before letting herself in. "Sir, we need to talk."

He briefly glanced up from his desk. "I'm in the middle of designing. Don't interrupt me."

"Yeah, this is more important than that."

"What could be more important than designing? It's my entire career, livelihood. Without my designing," he gestured around the room, "none of this would exist."

"But-"

"So, tell me what is so important that you decided to interrupt. I hope its worth my time."

"Adrien-" Nathalie winced, deciding to start small, "Adrien has decided to go on strike."

Gabriel waved his hand. "Tell him to stop."

"I'm afraid I can't." She shrugged. "He's given us and ultimatum." 

Gabriel laughed. "And what is it."

"He will work in the mornings when you stop sending Akuma out at night." Seeing that Gabriel didnt respond, she continued, "apparently, its been interrupting his sleep and that's why his performance has been subpar recently."

"Can you repeat that?" Gabriel froze. "What did Adrien say, exactly?"

"I believe he said, _"Tell father that I will resume early morning photo shoots when he stops the night time Akuma attacks."_ " Nathalie frowned. 

"Shit." Gabriel ripped the piece of paper he was holding in half. "There's really no other way to interpret that, is there?"

"Nope."

"He knows."

"Yep."

"He knows that I'm Hawkmoth."

"Yes, he does."

"He knows that I'm Hawkmoth." Gabriel repeated.

"Yes..that has been established. What should we do? Should we call him in here for a briefing? Would you like to explain?"

"No, I'm sure he understands my motives. He would've reported me otherwise."

Nathalie frowned. "So what should we do? His request is fairly reasonable-"

"Fine." Gabriel sighed. "Make sure you update my calendar. Anytime after 9pm is for sleeping, not akumatizations. It's getting unhealthy."

"Yes Sir."

That went... better than expected.

...

And then, without warning, Hawkmoth had randomly decided to stop akumatizing people at night. 

Adrien was glad, because it meant he could finally get a break, but it certainly seemed suspicious. 

The only other times that Hawkmoth had called down were when he planned huge attacks, like Hero's Day.

They couldn't deal with another Hero's Day, they barely won the first one.

While they did get extra sleep, Ladybug and Chat Noir did nightly patrols.

Adrien had to do his homework as soon as he got home, but he could manage. It was a lot easier to focus when he wasn't sleep deprived and seeing little gnomes everywhere. (Plagg still wouldn't tell him if they were real or a hallucination and Adrien was going to lose it.)

One day, he was working on a project, when Nathalie approached him. "You seem better this week."

Adrien nodded. "I'm certainly more awake. I can actually focus and understand what people are saying."

"That's great, I'm glad that this new schedule is working out for you."

"And, now that I've been getting enough sleep, I've stopped seeing the little gnomes everywhere." As soon as Adrien said it, he realized how ridiculous it sounded. Nathalie wasn't going to believe him. She was going to think he was crazy. And then he would get pulled out of school and never see his friends again and have to live in the basement with the gnomes.

Luckily, Nathalie just laughed it off. "Gnomes?"

"When I got really tired, I started to see things. It was almost like a dream, but while I was awake." Adrien explained. "I'm better now."

"That's good to hear, I'm sorry that I didn't realize how hard it was on you before."

"As long as I get sleep, I'm good."

"Yeah, your father has agreed to stop akumatizing people, as requested, so you are more than capable of getting adequate sleep every night."

"Wait, what?"

The words appeared in front of his face, like a computer screen. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, or maybe it was the only way he could process what just happened.

_Adrien.exe has crashed. Starting reboot process._

Nathalie waved a hand in front of his face.

_Rebooting..._

"Adrien, are you okay?" 

_System Restarting.._

_"_ You look a little pale." She stared at him.

_Process Complete. Installing..._

"Adrien, you need to snap out of it."

_Processing Information..._

_Done._

_Confirmed._

_Hawkmoth is Gabriel Agreste._

Adrien bolted.

...

This time, there was no room for subtlety. 

Nathalie slammed open the doors to Gabriel Agreste's office.

"That seemed a little aggressive.." he mumbled.

"Gabriel," she winced, "we fucked up."

"What did you do this time?" He groaned. "Who do I have to kill?"

"No one-"

"I thought you were just going to talk to Adrien about his schedule."

"I was. But he reacted poorly when I mentioned you akumatizing people. It was as if he didn't know." Nathalie frowned.

"Impossible, he told you he knew last week."

"That's what I thought, but maybe he was speaking in hyperbole. It was an exaggeration of sorts."

"My son does not exaggerate." Gabriel scoffed. "He tells the truth."

"Then, maybe we have to look into the possibility that he was being sarcastic or something when he asked for you to stop summarizing."

"You said he already knew-"

"I thought he did. You know I can't read sarcasm." 

"Yeah, like I'm so much better." Gabriel rolled his eyes. 

"Was that sarcasm? I genuinely can't tell."

"We have to bring him in here and explain."

"I'm afraid its too late."

He sighed. "If Adrien knows that its all for his mother, he will understand."

"He already ran away, sir, he's gone."

"Well, shit." Gabriel swore.

"What?"

"There's no getting out of this one. He's too much of a goody-two-shoes-punk-ass-bitch to keep this secret."

"Did you just call your son a-"

"Don't repeat it Nathalie." Gabriel cut her off, "Its the truth. Adrien doesn't have a bad bone in his body. His moral compass is too strong."

"What do we do now?"

"We wait. Hopefully, he will come to his senses and we can explain everything to him, but if not..."

"Then what?"

"Well, we have to be prepared for the worst... Nathalie, if I get arrested-"

"You won't."

"If, I do, promise me that you'll watch over Adrien."

"If you get arrested, I'm pretty sure ill get arrested for being your accomplice."

"Damn."

"Yeah."

...

Minutes later, Ladybug and Chat Noir broke into Gabriel Agreste's office.

He surrendered without a fight. 

"I just want what's best for my family. For my son. I've realized that I failed and I want to do better."

"That's sweet," Ladybug frowned, "but you've been terrorising Paris. I'm not letting you go."

"Yeah, no shit you were a bad dad. You hurt your son and all of Paris. Its a little late to try to fix things."

"Its never too late to try. Tell Adrien I'm sorry."

Ladybug had never looked more unfriendly, as she handcuffed him to Nathalie with red and black spotted handcuffs. "I'll pass along the message."

Chat rolled his eyes. "It is too late to try. You're going to prison for a long time, Dad-dy-o," he stuttered, trying to act cool. "Daddy-o. You're certainly not my father. I don't have a father."

Fortunately, the police showed up, Ladybug was able to shuffle Chat away before he could reveal his identity, unfortunately security footage was released, and nearly every news headline in Paris was about Chat calling Hawkmoth "Daddy."

It was embarrassing, especially with speculations made about his leather suit, and let's just say that Chat Noir's wholesome reputation was ruined that night, for no real reason.

It was just a big miscommunication.

It all had been a big miscommunication.

And Hawkmoth's wasn't the only identity revealed that night. 

**Author's Note:**

> The more I wrote the worse it got, I apologize extensively if you read this. I might write a pt two when Adrien tells Marinette, but this is compete for now.  
> Let me know (constructively) what you thought.  
> (I'm aware that I've probably lost its but how could I improve my writing?)
> 
> Haha back to writing crack instead of sleeping, we love it.  
> At least I've never been so sleep deprived that I saw gnomes.
> 
> ....
> 
> Hey, do you read/write/art for this fandom? Check out the [ miraculous fanworks ](https://discord.gg/mlfanworks) discord server.


End file.
